Before writers are writers they are readers, living in books, through books, in the lives of others that are also the heads of others, in that act that is so intimate and yet so alone.

There is no one as dangerous as he or she who has nothing to lose.

Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.

A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another.

To be hopeful means to be uncertain about the future, to be tender toward possibilities, to be dedicated to change all the way down to the bottom of your heart.

Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don't--and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown.

Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.

Politics is pervasive. Everything is political and the choice to be "apolitical" is usually just an endorsement of the status quo and the unexamined life.

Memory, even in the rest of us, is a shifting, fading, partial thing, a net that doesn't catch all the fish by any means and sometimes catches butterflies that don't exist.

Every minute of every hour of every day you are making the world, just as you are making yourself, and you might as well do it with generosity and kindness and style.

Revolution is as unpredictable as an earthquake and as beautiful as spring. Its coming is always a surprise, but its nature should not be.

In the end it may well be that Britain will be more honoured by the historians for the way she disposed of an empire than for the way in which she acquired it.

He who despises his own life is soon master of another's.

I'd like to think Helen very much understood what it was to be disadvantaged in the medical field. And that that was something that she never let dictate her choices.

All I hope is that the American coalition is doing its best to prevent civilian casualties and the killing of innocent people.

Heroes and cowards feel the same fear and action creates opportunities.

It is the storytellers task to elicit sympathy and a measure of understanding for those who lie outside the boundaries of State approval.

Get low; grace will meet you there.

People were always pointing the finger at the fast food industry. And I was a big fan of personal responsibility - you know, no one is forcing you to eat. We're not geese being stuffed with corn.

I knew I could hold myself with that absolute love and compassion.

Heroes put to the test, keeping a promise, doing their best.